clothing (and accessories): short pieces on a theme

Not quite sure why I held on to your ripped red-and-white striped short pjs since you almost died in them over 40 years ago. I kept them in a desiccated brown paper bag. You died not long after that terrible illness, and most of your family is gone now, dead, too, or distant; only our son might want to take a look at them, and it might be one way he could know you differently. Recently I vetoed that. He is just too fragile. Over the years I’ve told him stories, yours and ours, but he’s never quite heard them. And that’s okay: he’s a father now with his own lovely lively son. I dreamed about him, our beautiful son, when he was young, his wisdom, wordless though loud, the night before I burned your candy-striped pjs, godless prayers said over the uneven flames with my wife, our son’s generous stepmother, right alongside me, a truly long goodbye.
    - Alan Bern


My granddad has his own drawer. The things that we couldn’t give to the shop for abandoned cats live in it. There’s a monogrammed handkerchief; a pair of aspirational cuff links I never once saw him wear; a paisley cravat. And a tie with a miners’ lamp crest. It’s what they handed him for forty years working in the dark and wet, hand-picking black gold till his lungs filled with the dust that eventually drowned him. A tie. Not a silk tie, a cheap polyester tie that faded fast in the weak northern light.
    Alan Peat


In 1958 I was in kindergarten at First Presbyterian Church. One of my best friends, Candy Kegareese, was a cute little girl with a bob haircut and sweet smile, who had a LOT of shoes. It seemed like she wore a different pair every day, and the first time I went to her house she opened her closet and on the floor were all the shoes, lined up in neat rows, each pair awaiting their turn to be put on her five-year-old feet. My favorites were the little white ones, soft leather with worn toes, narrow straps, and a little button that fastened on the top of her foot. I’m not so sure that it was Candy’s shoes that ignited my longing, but it was most surely part of it. Ricky Marshall had a lot of shoes too. He was my same age and lived next door to our house, 1301 Don Avenue. With my pleading, he would bring his black snap-tongue shoes and his white bucks over to the side yard between our two houses for me to try on. The snap-tongue shoes slipped easily on my feet, the snap closing with its tinny clicking sound, and I was delighted. Who knows what Ricky thought of my innocent tomboy self coveting his shoes, but he cheerfully went along with it, quietly watching me as I stood up, in stillness, staring down at my small feet, inhabiting a self of dreams.
    - Ann Carter


Clothes – wearing apparel. Clothes they were. Apparel, a more dignified word, they were not. England, 1949, girls’ boarding school uniform for ages 11-18. Everyday — green V-neck, knee-length, sleeveless tunic; green and white striped blouse; green and red striped tie; knee-length woolen socks; clunky lace-up walking shoes. A green cloak for walking on the school grounds. Sundays in winter — scratchy, sackcloth-like jacket and skirt, just below the knee; white blouse; green tie; same socks and shoes; add one flat cowpat-like beret. Sundays in summer — one green dress falling just below the knee, with smocking along the top part, a sash, a cream-colored Peter Pan collar; the same socks and shoes (and unplanned-for dark sweat stains under the armpits). A bad imitation of a boys’ school uniform. An attempt to make us “uniform” since it was worn by all: rich/poor, pretty/ugly, etc. But of course, it didn’t make us “uniform.” Some girls could wear anything with a flair, and some of us looked like unmade beds no matter what.
    - Antonia Matthew


I became fashion-conscious as a new attorney in the 1970s. This required an investment in a quality wardrobe, on top of payments for school loans. Women attorneys adopted a uniform, usually a tailored suit in a boring neutral color with a pin on the jacket and a silk blouse with a bow tied at the neck. In the 1980s, fashion became more dramatic — shoulder pads and very high heels — and pantsuits found their way into the law office and courtroom. A decade later, sheath dresses with matching jackets appeared, a more glamorous look with the right jewelry. In big city law firms, dress codes remained conservative, except maybe for that silly casual Friday exception. In my smaller local office, fashion loosened up to the point where I wore leggings, ankle boots, and a stylish jacket over a turtle neck sweater. After retiring in 2016, I donated or consigned my entire business wardrobe. I admit that my legal career was inextricably connected to my appearance. I felt it inspired confidence in my clients that their lawyer knew how to make a strong impression not only on them but on adversaries and judges. Now, I am free to suit myself, pun happily intended!
    - Barrie Levine


Jeans are my favorite part of my collection of clothes. Wardrobe is too fancy a word for me. All I need is a pair of Levi 501 jeans, a pull-over shirt, plus an overshirt of some nature, with a large pocket or two. Buffalo plaid is mighty fine. I’ve always hated shopping for clothes in the women’s department of a store. Sizes vary with every line. A large here is a medium there. A small over there becomes a petite large here. I get dizzy and bored out of my mind. Thank God I wandered over to the men’s side one day when I was maybe 18. I saw the giant stacks of Levi jeans and I was immediately drawn to them. I almost cried with relief when I realized that all I needed to know, to find the perfect pair, was my waist measurement in simple inches and my inseam length (though rolling up the cuffs was okay too). Way back then I chose a button fly instead of a zipper. This formula has not changed for almost six decades now. It is one of the most consistent aspects of my life.
    - Blue Waters


My mother’s ghost pads around the house when I’m trying to write. The soft sound of her white moccasins on hardwood reminds me that I’m more like Mother than I care to admit. I’m wearing blue cotton socks and indigo clogs, lined with cotton fluff that sound like her moccasin shuffle. I change into them one second after coming home. These slippers and their scuffing sound comfort me, and my feet like to squirm and squiggle inside them while I’m playing Wordle. The slippers keep me warm at night while I write the day’s haiku. That’s when I hear her sneaking up behind me, watching me write, and I can feel her thinking, “I always said you should write a book, so what’s that you’re scribbling?” She may or may not not know how many poems I’ve written about her. She wouldn’t understand haiku, but she’s glad she always told me to write a book. I can imagine the cigarette in her mouth and smell the smoke. That’s how I know who she is.
    - Carole Johnston


“Wear the clothes, don’t let the clothes wear you,” was the advice given to me upon attending what was referred to as “charm school” for awkward teens like me back in the early ‘60s. I developed a sense of style that suited me, preferring neutrals, with color used only as accents.  One night I went against this advice and wore an ice-blue brocade dress to a Christmas party with my first real boyfriend. It had a shimmer. When we arrived my heart sank when I saw all the girls wearing sweater sets and flat shoes. I was overdressed! Worse, I would find out I was brought to the party to be dumped and introduced to his new girlfriend as they cuddled together on a couch. She wore a soft cashmere sweater set. Humiliated, a kind friend drove me home. To this day, I can’t wear patterns or sparkling clothes. I feel they draw attention away from who I am. I would share this deep humiliation with my daughter when she suffered her first heartbreak. It helped. I will never own a sweater set. But, like the Inuit myth of Crow bringing a ball of light to dispel the darkness, a small part of me is still drawn to sparkly things.
    - Carole MacRury


Sitting at her trusty Singer Featherweight, Mum carefully chose colorful fabrics to create matching dresses for my sister, Robin, and me. Mum was an identical twin and that powered her passion to dress her daughters alike, even though we were two years apart in age. My favorite were those neon-orange bug dresses we wore to church when I was eight and Rob was ten. The sleeveless bodices were a fiery hue, as lively and cheerful as the floral compositions Mum painted in oils. The full swing skirts and shawl collars, however, were cut from a bolt with larger-than-life insects dangling on a white background. Her love of nature became our own. Even now, a teeny red-and-black ladybug, or a grasshopper, reminds me of those dresses and makes me smile.
    - Deborah Burke Henderson


When I was a child, shoe-buying was both an exciting and humiliating experience. I remember heading to Vose’s Shoe Store with my mother to buy a new pair of saddle shoes, all the rage in the mid-forties when I was ten years old. Mr. Vose himself measured my foot and slipped on the shiny brown-and-white shoes with his fancy shoehorn. Then he led me to the fluoroscope machine to check the fit. This machine was made of wood and looked rather like a pulpit. I slid my feet into the opening at the bottom, then looked through a porthole in the top to view the x-ray of my foot bones inside the new shoes. Mr. Vose and my mother looked through their own portholes on either side. When I pointed out that the shoes were at least an inch too long, my mother said, “That’s good because your feet are still growing and these shoes will last you a long time.” “I can’t walk in these clodhoppers! They look like clown shoes!” I protested loudly. “My friends will laugh at me!” We left the store with the shoes in a box under my mother’s arm and feelings of mortification in my heart.
    - Emily Johnson


You know how you can’t let yourself get rid of those favorite shirts with all the holes in them? Today I was hanging out with Alan, he was wearing a black T-shirt with big rents in it, one under each arm. And I thought, I wouldn’t wear a shirt like that. For one thing, I would think I was putting my arm through the sleeve and the sleeve would end up perched on my shoulder. Remember that T-shirt I got in the museum in Mexico, the museum where they had the bullet-riddled car Pancho Villa was ambushed in? The T-shirt was posing as a recruiting poster for Pancho Villa’s army. I liked the idea, but the design wasn’t even authentic-looking. I wore it as a pajama shirt for years. When I threw it out yesterday there were several small holes in the back and some picture elements had faded completely away. I could have washed it again, worn it again. I have so many T-shirts, I told myself as I hesitated. It’s time.
    - Glenn Ingersoll


I'm a jeans and sweatshirt kinda guy. T-shirt, jeans, and sweatshirt. But I always put on a shirt with a collar on days I see Mom. Something tells me it's one more little piece of order in her days that have a little less order than they used to. Or maybe it's for me. Hard to tell. Hard to tell much of anything these days. Hard to tell.
    - Ian M. Shapiro


When I was nine my family moved from the Bronx to a small house in California. It was the first house we had ever lived in. There was a chicken farm across the road and, further down, a small ranch where I got to know a boy named Norm Sargent. The day we moved in, I opened the door of the closet in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The closet was full of cowboy gear left by the former owner — Stetson hats, boots, leather chaps, fringed vests, even a few (empty) holsters. Though the outfits were too large for me, I did my best and swaggered down the road to Norm’s house. He was out back feeding the horses. “Who or what do you think you are?” he asked. “I’m a cowboy,” I said. “Ain’t no such thing as a Jew cowboy,” he snorted. Years later, I thought of Norm when I came across a book at the UCLA library. Bound in fringed calfskin, it was called “The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas.”
    - Jack Goldman


When my father, Joe, died nearly two decades ago, my mailbox overflowed with condolence notes. The volume of cards and warm sentiments should not have surprised me: my father was well liked. What came as a complete shock was a lengthy, handwritten letter from a colleague of mine, long retired, with whom I had worked closely for several years. It began: “Dear Jim, I’m sorry for your loss. Your dad was a great man but, of course, you know this. What you probably don’t know is that Joe was a friend of mine for nearly sixty years. I met your father at Morris’ Menswear in 1948, when he sold me my first blue blazer.” (The blue blazers my father sold to hundreds of young Cornell undergraduates were, in his strongly-held opinion, essential to their future success.) The letter went on to trace a friendship that continued through their simultaneous deployment to Fort Dix during the Korean War and many other, happier events in the years that followed. I knew absolutely none of this. Yet, my father’s love of a good blue blazer resonated. “That blazer looked awfully sharp,” our mutual friend recalled, “I’ve always had Joe to thank for that!”
    - Jim Mazza


When I was in fourth grade my school added an over-the-heart pocket to our navy-blue uniform jumpers. In the first week of school, I noticed several friends had started putting linen, lace, or cotton “hankies” in those pockets. The splash of color or design made their uniforms “different.” Individual. I liked that idea. As soon as I got home I asked my fashion-loving mother if I could buy some hankies. Delighted that I was showing even a small interest in fashion, my mother agreed, and also offered “something for right now.” She pulled out a box from her dresser and showed me her handkerchief collection. Many were colored, edged in lace. Mom handed me the box. “They’re yours now.” I was enchanted by these elegant, lovely squares, the first items of clothing I ever really cared about. The next day, Mom helped me fold a green cotton lace-trimmed hankie so it neatly peeked out from my uniform pocket. Although I never became obsessed with fashion, I began to appreciate how clothing can make a person feel wonderful and individual. I no longer wear a uniform, but I still cherish that box of handkerchiefs.
    - Joan Leotta


I never wore one, but it was all those days out in the sun selling my jewelry at the art show that did it. My friend lost her patience with me and came to my red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet velour-pillowed display with a gift. Handmade by her. Covered with flowers. For goodness sake, she said, you need a display on your head. And that was the start of it all.
    - Kath Abela Wilson


It was perfect. Purchased on a whim with no idea where or when I would wear it in those early teaching days. Far more than I should be spending. It called my name. Serendipity. A month later I had to attend a formal dinner with dancing. The perfect dress. Fabric like the softest old tee shirt. A slender crimson column falling from spaghetti straps to my feet. Slit to the knee on one side. Perfect for dancing. A tiny matching jacket for cool nights. High above the streets of Atlanta we danced for hours. (What was his name?) I must have worn it many times between the first and last time. Perhaps to formal weddings. On a hot sultry late summer night I wore it on another dance floor. Stars bright above the sea we headed for the beach, wading into the surf. Last dance to the music of the incoming waves. The damp sandy dress still perfect. Then one fall day, that spill of bright red crimson, the perfect dress, missing — as magically as it had appeared. Never seen again. Still perfect in my mind.
    - Margaret Walker


We’re at a wedding reception in an abandoned beachfront mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, the reception ballroom blazing with candles. Torn drapes hang like ghosts from the massive windows. An orchestra has been hired to play waltzes for the duration. My husband’s last two years of land duty after Vietnam are at the base here and a Navy friend of his lives rent free in the caretaker’s apartment in this mansion, the only space with electricity — hence the candles. His job: to keep out intruders and arrange for the football-sized yard to be mowed. He and his now-wife both come from wealth. The room reeks of money. I’m wearing my floppy, wide-brimmed tan hat, my favorite ever, picked up for ten dollars at a discount store. It’s perfect, the way it frames my face, curves down toward my eyes, long hair beneath, brushing my shoulders. It goes with jeans or with a long dress like I’m wearing tonight. I look good and I know it. Partway through, a wealthy friend of the parents walks over and offers to buy the hat for fifty dollars. His wife wants it. I know she thinks it will make her look like me. More hats were there and maybe I could buy another one but if they sold out I’m screwed. I love this hat. I know I can hold out and he’ll give me a hundred. I can tell by his determined look. I think of MY hat dancing away on another woman’s head. I think of my own head with no hat like it to cover it. I say “not for sale.”
    - Pris Campbell


After our father's funeral, the family returned to my parents' house. A little later, my sister climbed the stairs to the main bathroom and discovered that the clock there had stopped. She wanted a sign that our Dad was okay by asking him to reactivate the clock, since he had always been our in-house handyman. Sometime later, my sister returned to the bathroom and, mysteriously, the clock had started running again. I wasn't content with the message my sister received. I wanted a sign of my own. A few days later, as I was waiting in the front yard for my partner to get ready to go out to dinner, I spotted a coin caked heavily with dirt. I picked it up and quickly took it to the kitchen and ran it under hot water to clean off the dirt. I discovered that it was not just a quarter but a quarter with the year of my birth: 1954. I burst into tears, knowing that since my dear father was okay, I would be, too. The following day I went to a jewelry store and bought a chain and a bezel to put the precious coin in. That quarter I found is now always around my neck. It goes wherever I go. Sometimes a quarter can become a precious piece of jewelry.
    - Robert Epstein


Every August, Mom would take me to a department store to find a new school outfit or two, maybe a pair of shoes, definitely some socks. Every August I rebelled. I didn’t want new clothes. All my girlfriends wore hand-me-downs, and were not forced to wear new clothes. I didn’t want to be an only child anymore. I longed to be like them. I wanted a big sister, or better said, my big sister’s gently-worn clothes. Sometimes I cried in shame because all my outfits came fresh from the store. In my opinion, the only worthwhile lure of department stores was the escalators, the thrill of indoor carnival rides. In sixth grade, a friend and I exchanged mohair sweaters. She got my pink for her blue. I felt empowered after our exchange, but still I longed for an older sister who would provide me with used school attire. In my teen years I discovered the joy of secondhand charity shops, where I could buy jeans and jackets for a few bucks. The racks featured sweatshirts in every color on the planet. To me, it was fashion heaven. To this day, I remain adamant about avoiding new clothes.
    - Roberta Beach Jacobson


Dad called it my Sunday-go-to-Meetin' bonnet. I had just turned four. Mom sewed the bonnet of the softest pink corduroy, the pink of a Bonica rose, and lined it with matching pink satin. I stood on the chair behind her, watching as she sewed in the tiny light-filled room off the upstairs hall. The bonnet was a classic Quaker bonnet in shape if not color, with a stiffened brim framing my face and corduroy strings that tied under my chin. Wearing it felt wonderful. The corduroy fabric was deliciously soft. The satin lining slipped easily over my stringy mouse-brown hair. My two pigtails hung down below the bonnet's back. Not very far down — those pigtails were never very long and rarely neat. The past few months hadn’t been easy. We had moved recently and I felt scared of many things. That bonnet, though, with that lovely deep brim, gave me the feeling that I could look out at the world, but the world couldn't see me. I could hide in plain sight. For a shy four year old, it was magical. I hope Mom knew how much I loved it.
    - Sue Norvell


Somewhere in the attic there is a bin labeled “baby clothes I want to keep.” Notice the words stop there and don't include an “until” date. Just plain old keep. Maybe forever. The babies in question have grown into agile, lively 5 and 6 year olds now, all limbs and questions. How can I part with the tiny white cardigan she came home from the hospital wearing? Who else could wear the smallest footed pajamas that he wore, all fleece and patterned with baby raccoons?  Why do I save them? They’re souvenirs from a place I won’t live again, tokens from a time we’ve moved beyond. Perhaps knowing they’re up there, neatly folded and stowed away, is enough. And when I need proof that these big, beautiful children were once small enough to be carried, I’ll lift off the cover of that bin and see for myself.
    - Summer Killian


My mom bought her long fur coat before she and my dad married. By the time I was born, she'd worn it many times over. When I was growing up, she'd toss it on to meet me at the school bus stop or when she took the dog for a walk. She told me it was a “poor person's mink” because it was made of muskrat fur. Still, it was soft and silky, lined in satin, with her initials embroidered inside. I enjoyed drawing it close around me when she left it on the couch. It was certainly a lot less scary than the fox fur stole worn by the woman we usually sat behind in church. I hated the beady eyes of the fox head that bit into its own tail wrapped around the old lady's shoulders. Mom's coat was familiar to me. So familiar that when a piece of it fell off, we decided to make it into something. In her button collection, Mom had a few with owl faces and rhinestone eyes. I sewed a button to the fur, added a safety pin on the back, and called it my “squiggle.” I wore it to the playground where all the kids noticed my new accessory.
    - Theresa A. Cancro


Wearing Tingley boots is a real hillbilly look but they’re just the thing to keep your work shoes or hiking shoes dry. Just plain black rubber that stretches as you pull them over your shoes, sometimes you need silicon spray to lubricate the inside or Tingleys are hard to get on. Or you put plastic bags on your shoes to make them slip on. People who grew up on dairy farms sometimes laugh and say “Tingleys!” when they see me wearing those black boots that are commonly found in milking parlors and pastures on the feet of folks caring for cows and calves in mud, manure, and water. The bad thing is the boots can be punctured or torn easily, not boots you can trust around barbed wire. But they last until I wear out the heels now, not farming makes them last longer.  
    - Tina Wright


In the early 1970s I realized that my childhood love of well-worn clothing that was soft, tattered and not necessarily “clean” was actually becoming fashionable. I took this as a sign that I could, and should, dress down, and wear my same few articles of clothing day after day until they became so worn, dirty, and sporting holes that they were literally falling apart. It became me so happily, and thoroughly the me I wanted to be, but my mother and father were rather distressed at the mess of my appearance and encouraged me to clean up “my act.” Friends at the time were quite accepting and I actually gravitated towards those who were inclined to dress similarly to my own disheveled style. When I graduated from college and got my first job in the library I amazingly found tolerance for my cultivated shabbiness and was very grateful that I had found a job that allowed for an almost “anything goes” attire. Although my first on-the-job performance appraisal noted, in the “room for improvement” section: “Tom dresses, perhaps, too casually for his position in which he interacts with the public.” Soon after this I was given
some specific guidelines about what was okay and what wasn’t, and the slow metamorphosis toward cleaning up a bit began. But throughout the years — 37 years! — I stayed with the library job in large part because I still could dress fairly casually.
    - Tom Clausen


Many years ago a woman named Flash Rosenberg wrote a piece called “All the Black Clothes in New York.” She explained that her grandfather, Papa Rosy, a London tailor, bought a lot of black fabric in anticipation of the death of King George, which, he assumed, would be accompanied by a long period of mourning. But then, sooner than expected, the mourning was over, Elizabeth was on the throne, Flash’s grandfather went bankrupt, moved to New York, and sold his black fabric in the Garment District and the Lower East Side. Well, this is my piece, not nearly as poetically written as Flash’s. I am calling it “all the black clothes in my closet.” Here goes: two black winter coats, nearly identical; a black hooded almost-sweatshirt thing except it doesn’t pull over the head, there’s a zipper; a lightweight shiny-material jacket with an extraordinary lining that looks like an abstract painting with lots of yellow, orange, turquoise (the most colorful thing in my closet); a very nice blazer that I have worn on formal occasions because it looks “professional” but now I don’t wear it because it’s missing a button; 5 over-the-head tops made by the women’s clothing company, Habitat — if you look quickly they all seem the same but there are subtle differences; a long-sleeved button-down top made out of some material I can’t identify, a little bit slinky, I’ve had it for about a dozen years, my mother bought it for me, I love it, I hope I have it forever; two short-sleeve and two long-sleeve “bamboo” tops that are called “sleep wear” online but I wear them in the outside world, I’ve never slept in them; five pairs of black pants, some linen and some not, none have zippers, all are pull-on, some have ties at the waist; a very nice sleeveless, long-to-my-knees vest-like thing that looks good over everything else. At the bottom of the closet: shoes, sneakers, and sandals, all black (a total of ten pairs) and a pair of black leather ankle-high boots I’ve never worn but who knows, maybe tomorrow.
    - Zee Zahava